Taiwan Legislators Visit Hannuk University of Foreign Studies

A group of legislators and researchers came to Korea to observe the 2017 Korean presidential election on May 9, 2017. The group visited Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (韓國外國語大學) on 8 May, just one day before the election, to collect first hand sources and exchange opinions about the election with scholars at the university.
The group of 18 comprised members of the Legislative Yuan, government branches, and the think tank of the Democratic Progressive Party and was led by legislators Chen Ming-Wen (陳明文), Kuo Jeng-Liang (郭正亮) and Chen Ying (陳瑩). The group received a warm welcome from the university. They first had a tour of the campus and university annals room, and then held discussions with the professors from the Chinese Language Department and professors of East and South Asia Studies during which they exchanged opinions and had a profound discussion about the democratic systems and presidential election of the two countries.
Chen Ming-Wen, thanked Dr. Kim In-Chul, President of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (金仁喆校長), on behalf of all the group members and Taiwan’s government. He said that it had been a fruitful and constructive visit to one of the world’s top universities, and they now had a better understanding of Korea’s presidential election system. Legislator ChenYing, also took this opportunity to introduce the culture of Taiwan’s aborigines to her Korean friends.
In order to extend a warm welcome to the legislators and their party, the university president Dr. Kim In-Chul hosted a luncheon in honor of their visit. Dr. Kim said that he was invited to Taiwan by the Ministry of Education in December 2016. Before this, he had been to Taiwan once before to visit several universities and sign an agreement with National Taiwan Normal University in 2010. He was astonished to see that great progress had been made, not only in education but in every aspect of modern life, when he went to Taiwan again six years later. As a political scientist, he commented that Taiwan is a very important country in this area, Taiwan studies and China studies are of equal importance at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, and this is the reason that they set up a Taiwan Research Center (台灣研究中心) on the campus.
Professor Kang Jun-Rong (康峻榮), Lin Da-Gen (林大根), and Kong Yu-Zhi (孔裕植) from the Taiwan Research Center, and Mr. Chang Jiunn Jiun (張俊均), Director of the Education Division of the Taipei Mission in Korea had also been invited to join the discussions and attend the luncheon. They hope that there will be more interactions and exchanges between Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and universities in Taiwan in the future.